Aussie Bloggers

On May 10, Perth is hosting it’s second BarCamp, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to introduce people to the concept.

So what is a BarCamp?

A lot of people probably saw the title of this post and thought “bar what?” – or assumed it had something to do with that great Australian institution, the pub. Although many BarCamp events in Australia at least do end up at the pub, that’s certainly not the main aim!

BarCamp is the name given to a international movement of informal, user-driven “unconferences” – do-it-yourself workshop-style events where everyone is encouraged to participate, either by presenting a topic or participating in a panel or debate, blogging about the event, taking photographs or shooting video, or helping out with lunch. Although most are one day events – typically on a weekend – some are getting so popular that they are expanding over multiple days.

A BarCamp is an absolute ton of fun, and a great educational experience as well. The people running them are generally very community-minded and are open to participation from people of any level – because everyone has something to offer, even those who don’t consider themselves gurus.

And as for the crazy name – according to Wikipedia, “BarCamp” came about as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Foo Camp, an invitation-only user-generated conference run by publisher Tim O’Reilly. “Foobar” is a term with a long history in computing. Which in itself raises a whole lot of other questions… but I’ll leave it up to the interested reader to follow the links through on that one!

Who comes to these things?

Traditionally, it’s been mostly people who work with the web – programmers, designers, web marketers, etc. But with blogging and podcasting hitting the mainstream, and social networking becoming part of many people’s daily lives, the BarCamp audience is expanding to include people who might not previously have considered themselves “geeks”.

In Perth, we have a strong community of librarians, for example, who are very interested in how social networking and blogging is changing the way they operate. Educators are also often involved. And of course there’s the bloggers!

What are they about?

The range of potential topics is limitless, and as the schedule is decided on the day, it will greatly depend on who is present.

At Perth’s first BarCamp, held in June 2007, there were sessions on blogging, web programming, the Second Life virtual world, ergonomics, mobile web sites and setting up a business. At a recent BarCamp held in Canberra, there were presentations on the “Getting Things Done” productivity methodology, Twitter, web site usability, and the use of social networking in business, amongst a whole range of other topics. Something for everyone!

Much of the time, speaker slides, notes and sometimes even audio or video are posted as well, so you can get a feel for the kind of topics that are covered – and catch up on anything you might have missed.

Sounds great! So how do I get involved?

There’s a central web site – BarCamp.org – where BarCamp events are organised. Check your city and see if there’s one coming up – the front page has THE definitive list of upcoming events.

And if there’s nothing in your area… maybe you could start one. Why not?